as often it is in your case, the answer that was born in your chauvinist, prejudiced head
Point out to me the threads where I have demonstrated prejudice against Poles. You say this occurs often. Provide examples.
you yourself called me "a lovely girl")
As I said, it was very nice of you to go to so much trouble for the poster who was looking for information. However that doesn't mean that you're universally lovely in all respects.
(your "Irish brilliance" that Ziemowit ridicules)
Ziemowit and Johnny Reb refer to British Brilliance and I have never been ridiculed by Ziemowit.
I don't understand what's "odd" about it. The memory of WWII is not only more painful but also more recent
Red Army monuments are connected to WWII Paulina. And the subsequent handing over of Poland to the Soviets is in exactly the same time frame. What I mean by odd is that many Polish people find such glorification of the Soviets deeply offensive in view of the fact that the Russians literally sat and watched the destruction of Warsaw. then marched in and proclaimed themselves the saviours of Poland and subsequently subjected your country to fifty years of repression. I personally feel pity for the individual Russian soldiers who died, most of whom weren't monsters, just ordinary men caught up in war. I do think that one simple memorial is appropriate but I do think it odd to see a plethora of monuments to Russian domination and nothing obvious to the memory of the Great War.
British families weren't affected to such an extent by the WWII as Polish families were.
That is an astonishing statement. It truly beggars belief.
the behaviour of Ireland during World War II
By that, I assume you mean neutrality. It would be going too far off topic to discuss that. Goverment policy aside, the contribution of individual Irish men and women who were all volunteers is something we can be very proud of.
Those Poles who fought during WWI were never dishonoured the way those Irish who fought against the Nazis were in Ireland.
That's because the history of Polish partition and your relations with the three countries involved were not as bitter and prolonged as that between the Irish and the British. I mentioned the thousand years of conflict and bloodshed that characterised the colonisation of Ireland which I know you can't understand. But those Irish men who fought in WWI were seen as fighting for Britain at the exact same time that other Irish men were being killed by the British forces in Ireland. And those who fought in WWII were seen as carrying on that pattern.
To give you an example of how it permeated Irish society, my maternal grandfather was already serving in the British army at the outbreak of WWI but my paternal grandfather was a member of the Irish Volunteers and active in the War of Independence. My paternal grandfather barely spoke to my maternal one so deep was the resentment on his part. His older cousins had been fighting on the streets of Dublin in 1916. And this was extremely common in Irish society. You really cannot begin to appreciate the intensity of those feelings, due to the sheer smallness of Ireland. Virtually everyone was directly involved. In Poland yes, there were patriots during partition, but nothing like the scale of personal involvement by ordinary people both men and women, that existed in Ireland. My maternal grandmother was an active member of Cumann na mBan, the womens' auxilliary corps of the Irish Volunteers. She was just an ordinary farmer's daugher but she was one of many such women, training in the use of firearms, gathering intelligence, storing arms in their homes, carrying dispatches. Unless you've visited Ireland and seen for yourself the smallness of it and the impossiblity of living immune from the politics of the time, you can't understand how powerful those emotions were.
you're complaining about graves of people who died a century ago?
And by that logic, it will soon be time to forget the dead of WWII. It ended seventy years ago.
I've also skimmed through the article
Take the time to read it properly before commenting.
I don't see what WWI has to do with de-Germanization. It doesn't make sense to me, tbh.
The three battlefields referred to in the article (which are noted because they were the site of significant WWI engagements) involved the German and Austrian forces. It's
postWWI de-Germanization the author refers to. And it's just a theory. The main point of the article is that as a casual observer, an outsider visiting Poland, there is nothing prominently displayed at any of those sites to suggest that they were the site of significant WWI battles.
And look at the length of my post - that IS patience on my behalf, trust me lol
No, that's anger.
neumark.pl/main.php?kat=pomnikiwojenne&lang=pl
Great link thanks Othery. I've sent it to Prof Walton, the author of the article.
a plethora of monuments to Russian domination
Just to pick up that point again. I know quite well that they're there because of Communism but my point is that subsequent governments have left them in place and are still humming and hawing about what to do with them.
Another very interesting article for those willing to take time to read it:
encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/commemoration_cult_of_the_fallen_east_central_europe
It's co-authored by Piotr Szlanta who is a professor of history at the University of Warsaw. The article concludes that:
'During communist rule and domination,the commemoration of the First World War was intentionally marginalised or blurred in public consciousness'.However I'm not sure that I agree with the final summing up that:
'After the fall of the communist bloc and Soviet Union, the commemoration of the First War regained its place in the public memory and the state's historic policy, becoming an important part of the national identity'Not for Paulina. Another example of the way in which Communism continues to reach out its tentacles into Polish society almost a generation after its demise.
